


piano keys

by bookishgypsy



Series: the ridley's [3]
Category: Dynasty (TV 2017)
Genre: Charlotte Ridley, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:48:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24340822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookishgypsy/pseuds/bookishgypsy
Summary: Charlotte Ridley learns how to play the piano. Sort of.
Relationships: Fallon Carrington/Liam Ridley
Series: the ridley's [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1817107
Comments: 6
Kudos: 32





	piano keys

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [oh darling, don’t ever grow up](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23030128) by [falloncridley (myyellowumbrella47)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/myyellowumbrella47/pseuds/falloncridley). 



> I stole my godchild again. And now I'm never giving her back. 
> 
> Bruna was kind enough to hand Miss Charlotte off to me for this prompt she received, since I _do_ play piano, so she thought I'd be able to write it with my music theory knowledge. 
> 
> I'm really not returning her, though. Sorry. She likes it at Auntie's.

“What are you doing, Mommy?”

Charlotte’s tiny feet must have been silent as she walked herself into the vast living room, tip toeing behind her as her fingers danced against the piano keys, staccato echoing through the negative space in the room. Or maybe she just couldn’t hear her daughter of the sounds of music she was playing, the volume too loud to hear Charlotte’s usually heavy footsteps. Charlotte sits herself next to her mother at the piano bench, her blue Elsa dress bold and bright against the rainy day outside the windows, but she insisted on dressing up for the day. And she wasn’t one to deny her daughter anything she wanted.

“I’m playing, baby,” she says calmly as her brunette daughter sits beside her on the wooden piano bench.

Her curious doe eyes look up at her, just as striking and as blue as her own. “How come?”

“I think your baby sister likes it,” Fallon moves her hand to her round belly, rubbing her palms against it easily. “It seems to calm her down when she’s restless.”

“In your belly?”

She giggles at the innocent response, running her hands through Charlotte’s brown curls she adored so much, her fingers tangling themselves at the end of her strands. “Yes, princess.”

“Can you teach _me_ how to play?”

“I don’t know, baby,” she utters in that wavering tone. “You might be a little young.”

“Young?! I’m five!” Charlotte raises her arms to count the fingers against her right hand, holding it out for her mom to see. “I’m this many years old!”

Fallon watches as her daughter looks up at her with hopeful eyes, a certain kind of warmth filling inside her that she didn’t even think was possible until Charlotte was born. But she’d come along and turned her whole world upside down for the better.

“I don’t know,” she mumbles. “You think you’re ready?”

“Please mommy?” Charlotte raises herself up to rest her knees against the bench, trying her best to match Fallon’s height even though she still was too tiny to match it. “Please?”

“Well, alright.” Fallon ruffles her daughter’s hair a little, Charlotte’s soft laugh filling the room. "But only cause you’re cute.”

“Cute?!” Charlotte squeaks out the words with disapproval at her mothers choice of words “I’m adorable!”

Fallon pivots her body back to face the Steinway, fingers gently gracing the keys again. “How about we start with a few basics, okay?”

“Okay!”

“So, the first thing I learned when I took piano lessons was how to find Middle C.”

“Middle _what_?” The confusion in Charlotte’s voice was enough to make Fallon look to the side at her daughter, her scrunched up face matching the tone of her voice perfectly.

“Middle C,” Fallon points to the key, letting the sound of the note ring between them for a moment, so Charlotte can hear what it sounds like. “It’s the key most songs you learn as a new player are in. So, it’s important to learn where it is.”

“And it’s right there?” Her tiny voice is so curious, she adores how much her daughter wants to learn anything and everything. “That one?”

“It depends on the piano and how many keys it has. It’s always a C4, though,” Fallon tries to explain carefully. She’s not exactly sure how to approach teaching piano to someone so young, or at all if she’s being honest. She’s just doing her best to dig back to those memories when she learned the instrument and tries to recreate those little lessons for her own baby girl. “On our grand piano,” she dwells on. “Yes, middle C is right here.”

“Why is it called Middle C if it’s not even in the middle?”

“That’s a good question, baby,” Fallon chuckles at her daughters response, so intuitive and in tune with all her surroundings. Of course the first thing she’d notice is the weird name for the well known piano note and how it stemmed to the left, barely close to the actual center of the keys at all. “I don’t know the answer to that.”

Her daughter looks up at her with wide eyes, a serious expression in her face. “It seems like any piano player should know that, mommy.”

“How about I show you how to play some Mary Had A Little Lamb?” Fallon asks. “That’s a pretty simple song.”

“Okay!”

Fallon plays the song for Charlotte first, at a relatively normal speed so she can hear what is sounds like and where her fingers are meant to hit. “Are you ready to try now?”

“Yeah!”

Fallon grabs at her tiny hand, guiding it to the right notes. “I’m gonna help you guide your fingers, alright?”

Charlotte nods excitedly. “Okay, mommy!”

Fallon guides Charlottes tiny fingers to each key slowly, making sure she hits every note so she hears the familiar tune echo throughout the room. She moves them carefully, making sure each note is heard properly, so her daughter can recognize the melody as her tiny fingers push more pressure against the different keys.

“It’s a good start for you to move your fingers with a simple song like this,” she says, as her hands guide her daughter pale hand to the one C in the song, higher than the rest of them. And then, they finish together, Charlotte’s jaw hanging open with the thought that she’d just played her first song on the piano. “They’ll only get faster at moving the more you play.”

“Can we play Frozen now?!”

Fallon cups her hand against her daughters cheek, letting her thumb rub softly against her soft skin. “That’s not really a song for beginners, princess.”

“But I wanna learn how to play Let It Go!”

“Someday you will, baby,” Fallon hums softly. “But you gotta go slow.”

“Can _you_ play me Frozen?”

“Me?” Fallon asks with amused eyes; of course Charlotte figured a way out to get Frozen played for her. Clever as fox, that one. “I thought _you_ wanted to learn how to play piano?”

“I learned one whole song today!” Charlotte readjusts herself against the bench, trying to make herself comfortable, while still keeping herself as close to her own mother’s height as she can. “That’s a big step, mommy!”

“I suppose that is a big step,” Fallon can only smile at Charlotte, how much love and adoration that she felt for this little body was immense and indescribable. “If you’re really serious about playing this instrument, mommy can get you some lessons with a real teacher if you want?”

Her eyes grow wide at Fallons’ words, disbelief swirling around in those baby blues that she could really take some piano lessons - just like her mommy. “Really?!”

“Sure, baby.” Fallon tucks Charlotte into her side, holding her close against her body. “If that’s what you want. I’d do anything for you. You know that.”

Charlotte pulls away to look at her mom fully, excited voice escaping those tiny lips when she speaks again. “I wanna learn! I wanna learn!”

“I guess I’ll make some calls then,” Fallon says.

“So,” Charlotte’s voice rings out once more, making sure she drags the vowel sound out as long as her breath allowed her to. “Can we play Let It Go now?”


End file.
